Arctic Yearbook 2015 - Page 236

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governmental agencies (Ferlie et al 2011). Frameworks and theory of wicked problems have been
applied to a diverse array of policy areas, including publicly financed dentistry (Quiñonez 2012),
human tissue in medicine (Lewis 2008), and maritime security in Southeast Asia (Bateman 2011). This
sampling indicates that wicked problems are found wherever there is “chronic policy failure” (Ferlie
et al 2011).
Wicked problems, as Dryzek implies, are often found “at the intersection of ecosystems and human
social systems”, where the complexity of each system further challenges comprehension and effective
management (Dryzek 2005: 9). The effects of global-scale changes like climate change or economic
globalization may lead to wicked problems in which processes and actors at local scales are influenced
by global-level changes beyond their control (Chapin et al 2008). Wicked problem theory has
frequently been applied to human-environmental issues, including eutrophication (Thornton 2013),
Alaskan wildfires (Chapin et al 2008), coral reef protection (Hughes, Huang & Young 2013), and the
Yellowstone National Park (McBeth & Shanahan 2004; McBeth et al. 2010).
There are several ways of unpacking the complex nature of wicked policy problems. Although
frameworks differ, the underlying elements of wicked problems are repeatedly identified. Wicked
problems are hard to know: information may be inadequate, problems may be continually evolving,
and the problem may seem like a “black box”, without clear connections between contributing factors
and resulting effects. Furthermore, the number and diversity of actors involved in wicked problems
means that these problems are hard to manage: different actors may understand and define problems
differently and desire different approaches. Given this complicated group of stakeholders, wicked
policy problems demand careful management in order to minimize conflict and/or stalemate, and
ensure that all actors are working together in a coordinated effort to manage the problem through
time. The temporal aspect of wicked problems is important: since they can never be solved, creating
structures to X[